🇺🇸⚓️ Trump Class Battleships Will Be Nuclear Powered

Equipping the Trump class with nuclear propulsion presents benefits, but also massive challenges, and Navy officials had been pushing back against the idea.

The U.S. Navy says its future Trump class battleships are now set to be nuclear-powered. This is a huge development that will impact the cost and complexity of the design. With those issues in mind, now-former Secretary of the Navy John Phelan had said this was “unlikely” to happen just four weeks ago.

The Navy announced its intention to fit a nuclear propulsion system to the Trump class warships in its latest annual shipbuilding plan, which was released earlier today. The document also refers to these future large surface combatants as BBGNs, or nuclear-powered (N) guided-missile (G) battleships (BB). USNI News was first to report on this development.

The only nuclear-powered surface vessels in the Navy’s fleet today are its Nimitz and Ford class aircraft carriers. The service has not had a nuclear-powered surface combatant since the 1990s. During that decade, the one-of-a-kind cruiser USS Long Beach, destroyer USS Truxtun (later recategorized as a cruiser), and frigate USS Bainbridge, as well as two California class and four Virginia class cruisers (the latter not to be confused with the subsequent Virginia class of attack submarines) all left active duty. Nuclear propulsion offers functionally unlimited range, as well as a major boost in onboard power generation. It also comes with cost and complexity, in terms of a ship’s core design, and what it takes to operate and maintain it. We will come back to those issues later on.

The Navy has now outlined plans to acquire 15 Trump class BBGNs, one virtually every other year, between Fiscal Year 2028 and 2055. Two are also set to be ordered back-to-back in Fiscal Years 2030 and 2031. An initial official estimate has put the price tag of each of these ships at $17 billion. This is more than what the service expects to spend on each of the next three Ford class aircraft carriers, the projected unit costs of which range from roughly $13 to $15 billion.

🔗 https://www.twz.com/sea/trump-class-battleships-will-be-nuclear-powered

🇨🇾🇮🇱 Villages for sale: Cyprus is quietly becoming Israel’s next colony

Israeli businessmen now control about 70% of buildings and large swaths of farmland in Limassol’s district of Cyprus. Local media report Greeks have been blocked from entering the village of Trozena.

Here’s what you need to know:

🌏 Israeli-backed THV Home Resort Ltd plans to make a full-scale settlement near Trozena: restored homes, 60 new residential units, a winery, campground, and animal farm, while Greek derelict buildings will be demolished. Surely, this settlement is not for the local Greeks, but for Israelis.

🌏 However, local Community Council denies any cause for concern, insisting the village stays open to the public, and locals have "nothing to worry about."

🌏 Yet anxiety is rising over foreign land ownership and demographic shifts among Cypriots, as Israel’s presence on the island has surged to an estimated 15,000 residents in recent years.

🌏 The thing is local Greeks remember history. Just a century ago, Jewish settlers in Palestine bought "vacant" Arab land the very same way. Now, Greeks in Cyprus aren’t convinced they have "nothing to worry about."

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